Where screenwriters learn the form and logline their screen ideas.
Wide Awake
After waking up low on oxygen, a disoriented bio-engineer must stay awake to save herself & her team when someone sabotages their spaceship.
Interesting premise, would like to hear more, good luck :)
She's the first person to awake before the scheduled time but by middle of the film , she won't be the only one awake .
When the only awake crew member of a starship discovers the life support systems have been sabotaged, she has 60 minutes to repair the systems while evading a mysterious threat.
When the only awake crew member of a starship discover that somebody or something is sabotaging the stasis pods, she must race to the other side of the ship to repair its life support system while evading the unknown threat.
>>Cho has to stay wide awake if she and her comrades are to survive
Merely staying wide awake won't save the crew. That she has to struggle to stay conscious is a complication. What is it must she DO (objective goal) while struggling to stay conscious in order to save the crew?
(And a logline doesn't need to include the name of the protagonist.)
Valid comments BUT - the goal of a logline isn't to tell the whole story but to just to give the hook, the reason to watch it, to suggest the genre it is in, and what the thrust of the story will be. So in my logline - the genre is suggested - "spaceship", "sabotage", "killing", "survive". My genre is sci-fi thriller [with horror elements]. I think there's enough implied there to suggest that. Anyone who guessed horror or thriller is at least in the right ballpark. So obviously, it's not a romantic comedy or a straight up action flick.
The timelock is the oxygen running out, otherwise Frances Cho could take her idle time to find the thing killing the sleepers [the sleeping crew]. The antagonists are the saboteur, and the thing killing the sleepers. The oxygen deprivation IS NOT what sustains the film but it raises the stakes - what really drives the story engine is WHAT is killing the sleepers, and the suspense is whether Cho will discover it before she too becomes a victim.
I remember reading an article on how lack of oxygen causes micro-sleeps, loss of consciousness, delirium, whereas insomnia causes lack of focus, awareness and delirium. Recently after several days of insomnia followed by sleep apnea, where I had trouble functioning, a story idea manifested : I thought what if you were in a situation where you had to be very focused, and had to stay awake, when an environmental factor was threatening to put you to sleep. Lack of sleep threatens your focus but you don't dare sleep even though you crave it like heroin. Because when sleep means death - that would be a very dangerous situation indeed...
I DO appreciate the feedback. And I will rework the logline. Probably need to rework the synopsis too :)
Haven't seen Pandorum, will have to check it out.
BTW - I got the film title into the logline which is a quirk of mine.
Nick, that's a good point . And I have worked out a reason. But that's something to go in the synopsis, can't fit it in the logline. Still will revisit that too, otherwise it looks like a plothole.
I would argue (having not seen All Is Lost) that the goal in Gravity is not to survive. The goal in Gravity is to return to Earth. The STAKES in Gravity are that if she fails she dies. So I would agree with Chester Davis that I don't think the struggle against oxygen deprivation is going to be strong enough to sustain the whole film. Will it be like Chev Chelios in Crank, where the character has to keep waking themselves up?
If the oxygen has been "sabotaged" ... why would something ALSO stick around to manually kill the people sleeping? Surely that was the objective? Like, destroy the oxygen, the sleepers die in their sleep? Maybe the 'thing' hanging around, being a danger, actually just wants Cho dead? (Because she woke up for some reason when the oxygen was running low?)
Right now, the premise isn't reaching out of the screen and grabbing me. I feel like I've seen lots of films like this ... I want to know how yours will set itself apart?
What is killing the sleepers?
Is it a thriller, an horror movie or an action movie?
Is it more like Alien, Aliens or Pandorum?
"Pandorum" was based on the same premises plus the amnesia and the reactor needing to be rebooted.
"Gravity" (mostly) and "All is Lost" (totally) are about the mere struggle for survival.
Valid questions about the plot.
The premise and conflict seem fine at first. But, I don't think the struggle against oxygen deprivation is enough to drive a feature-length film. And why can't Cho put on a space suit,find an emergency oxygen bottle, or activate a backup system?